The contradiction between “plant economy” and “market economy” (Sohn-Rethel), characteristic of monopoly capitalism, reflects itself in the contradiction between two sectors of the capitalist state: the sector that blindly regulates the anarchy of the market via monetary and fiscal instruments, and the sector that attempts to link various sectors of the economy into a system via central planning organized in accordance with the principles developed in the sphere of “plant economy.” This is an aspect of the contradiction between the plan and market, that is, between the state-regulated sector and the private sector of the economy. Stephen S. Cohen provides empirical evidence substantiating the above argument.[1] He writes about the contradiction between the long-term regulation of the Planning Commission and the short-term regulation of the Ministry of Finance (the Treasury) in France:

Interviews with Treasury officials, businessmen, informed observers of French planning and the planners themselves yielded unanimous judgments: short-term economic policy was not deliberately used as an instrument to implement the plan; the implementation of the plan was only a marginal consideration to the Government and the Treasury when day-to-day economic decisions were made. It was repeatedly emphasized not only that short-term policy was not used deliberately and systematically for the purpose of implementing the detailed programs of the plan, but that quite often the main trends in economic policy were in contradiction with even the broadest outlines of the plan.[2]

It should be borne in mind that French planning is one of the most popular models of capitalist planning. According to Cohen, “the British study and imitate the French Plan, American city and regional planners draw models of it, Eastern European economists continually visit the Planning Commission’s offices in Paris, and the European Left thinks it significant enough to view it as a paradigm model of postwar European capitalism.”[3]

This contradiction, inherent in the production of commodities, cannot be dissolved by more and better planning. It can only be exacerbated by planning, as was demonstrated by Sohn-Rethel for the corporate level of the economy.[4]

Addendum I (September 10, 1988)

Only twelve years have passed since I quoted from my favorite book on French planning, but the only connection that remains with this book is a woman I briefly shared with its author. I remember the rustle of her fair skin, her faint lisp, the coldness of her checkered-marble bathroom floor… Six years ago, a century.

Addendum II (September 2, 1989)

At the time, she was a lecturer at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. I just started teaching as an assistant professor in the Architecture Department. Our offices happened to be very close to each other. As our two departments formed the School of Architecture and Planning, we felt that our love affair should be kept a secret. As far as we could tell, we were successful in this.

We had a few wonderful moments in the corridors of MIT. I remember one of our meeting places on the fourth floor of a building adjacent to our own, where we found an almost cozy cul-de-sac in the vast corridor network. Not too many people would pass by, and those who did were from another world—say, from the Department of Chemical Engineering. We would hold hands and kiss in front of a huge window from which we could see a good part of the dreary campus. I remember the jumble of indistinct buildings crawling with pipes, wires, and antennae. I remember this industrial scene covered with a profusion of snow and ice. I remember the muffled sounds of deep winter. All this was quite beautiful as long as our infatuation lasted. And it lasted as long as the winter.

She insisted on having a child with me, and for a while I thought I was prepared to give her one. The thought frightens me now, because it is inconceivable to me that the very memory of a potential mother of my child could become so pale in the intervening years. I have to dig deep to remember her stomach, her knees, her toes. I have to dig even deeper to remember the warmth of her body. As things turned out, I would be sharing a child with a ghost.

Addendum III (July 15, 1992)

I met, or rather saw and listened to, Cohen in 1973 at an international symposium organized by the Urban Planning Institute of Slovenia in Ljubljana, where I later spent four years as one of the Institute’s leading lights. There was a definite Californian air about him, including a full-breasted girlfriend he had in tow. At the time, feeling partial to the neurotic pace typical of Harvard and MIT, I felt there was something untoward and even degenerate about the ease and sluggishness I associated with Berkeley, but the vague memory of Cohen’s toy lingered on for years, suggesting a touch of subterranean envy. I was quite surprised when I met Julia in 1982 and learned about the Ljubljana connection. Although she was still an appealing woman, her breasts had lost their bounce, her attire was rather dowdy, her hair was already thinning, and there were hardly any traces of the free spirit I had learned to associate with Berkeley and California in general. In fact, there was something frail and fragile and brittle about her at the time we became close at MIT. To this day, the two Julias inhabit distinct and distant compartments of my mind.

Addendum IV (October 20, 1993)

The more I write about Julia, the more ghost-like she becomes. My memories of her are dominated by my memories of my writings about these memories. How else could it be? Sooner or later, the pages of my Residua will be but a graveyard. Worse, a graveyard of graveyards.

Addendum V (March 24, 1994)

Since my sexual appetites have begun to reawaken with so many signs of spring, the color of Julia’s pubic hair has been coming back to me from time to time: she was ash blond between her smooth and dry legs. Her pubic hair was extremely soft and wispy, like the fur of some small animal used to the snow and ice. It was on the long side, too. As she would straddle me, which was how we would make love most often, for a moment I would see the silhouette of a long and pointy tuft of matted pubic hair between her legs against the background of her small apartment on Brimmer Street, just off Beacon Hill in Boston. In the darkness of the night this tuft of hair would look like a short and twisted prick of a domestic animal.

Addendum VI (December 5, 2003)

Ploughing again through these fragments about a long-forgotten loveaffair, I am grateful for everything I have written about Julia because nearly nothing I have just read is still alive in my mind. All I remember are these sundry fragments, whose dates are often more instructive to me than their content. In fact, I would not be able to tease out even her name had I not written it down so many times over so many years. As I write, everything I have put down about Julia is as good as fiction. Or someone else’s recollection. Of course, memories of our time together may still burst into my consciousness at some point in the future, but this is how things stand at the moment. However, I have not decided to add a few words here so as to bash the poor woman once again; rather, I am delighted by apparently the only live recollection of that winter in Boston more than thirty years ago—Julia’s bathroom floor. I can still see it and feel it under my bare feet. The checkered marble tiles were on the large side—perhaps slightly less than a foot across. They felt thick and solid underfoot. Well-polished, the tiles must have been quite old. Their edges were rounded with use, too. But the most vivid recollection is that of the stark tile pattern. In hindsight, the black-and-white checkerboard offered an exquisite entoptic form. Not surprisingly, one such can be found among my paintings.

Footnotes

1. Cohen, S.S., Modern Capitalist Planning: The French Model, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969.

2. Op. cit., p. 166.

3. Op. cit., p. 9.

4. See, e.g., “Imperialism, the Era of Dual Economics: Suggestions for a Marxist Critique of ‘Scientific Management’,” Praxis (International Edition), Vol. V, Nos. 1-2, pp. 313-322.